Short and simple: slow work teaches you things automation hides.
I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
71–80 of 118 posts
Re: I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
#72I did technical drawing at school (pre computers... pencil, paper, t-square, compass, etc). It really was quite fun constructing things with pencil and paper. I think one good thing about it is you'd end up with a very intimate understanding of the thing you are designing because every tiny aspect took you mental effort to construct. I also think it really helped me understand projecting 3d into 2d, though on my old Atari 800XL, that was tricky and I dreamed of the day of high resolution screens...like 800x600 and 256 colors :)
Re: I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
#73I absolutely love the graphs that were used in old medical physiology papers. Something about the hand-drawn nature makes you appreciate both the underlying concept the graph is trying to convey as well as the work that went into it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge techie. I love computers and computer graphics, but sometimes a hand-drawn graph just takes the cake.
Re: I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
#74This is a lovely toy project. But please do not do this for real; imperfections - even minute imperfections - in data visualisations have consequences. 'Non-techy' people take for granted shapes and lines over numbers and sequences simply because computers are accurate. Correctness of data is a separate matter of course
Re: I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
#75I build furniture and while I do my design work digitally for remote clients, I do my shop drawings by hand. One super helpful tip I got from an actual trained draftsman is to use harder pencil lead for your layout and construction lines. Like 6H to 9H. You'll get a much lighter line to erase later. It'll also hold a finer point for longer. I prefer lead holders to wooden pencils. They take 2mm lead, and you sharpen…
I'm old enough that I took drafting in 7th grade. One tip I remember is to turn the pencil slightly as you use it. I think this was to help maintain the pencil's shape, but there my be other less obvious reasons. I took woodshop too. The shop teacher seemed to enjoy scaring us with stories of the students that goofed off in shop to horrific consequences. That's also where I learned to be careful with air compressors…
There are fun japanese mechanical pencils that have built-in rotation: https://www.unibrands.co/collections/kuru-toga
Re: I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
#76My dad had that lettering kit!
Even look like exactly that model and typography.
Re: I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
#77I don't like how the clickable area for images extends to the full width of the page even though the image itself does not.
Re: I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
#78With the advent of AI, I’d expect these resources to become a goldmine within about 20 years. Libraries will become hives of activity as dens of nostalgia.
Re: I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
#79This should be a competitive sport, like gymnastics. He's attempting the bevel! With extra-wide lines! Very ambitious, but unfortunately he often fails to stick the corner alignments, the bevel distances are poorly controlled, and the data is unsuitably spiky for that choice of line joint. 7/10.
When you say bevel, do you mean the miter limit?
The miterlimit just controls when to change between a miter join and a bevel join.
Re: I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph
#80Never, ever ask for forgiveness for, purely for the love of it, learning skills and creating by hand anything that can be mass-produced. Learning and craftsmanship are their own rewards.